Portable devices can be placed in objects that are transported. The devices can detect an event and indicate when the event has occurred.
However, these portable devices are not proximity aware. They cannot respond based on their proximity to another device. It is possible that a central server can determine whether a device is in proximity to a receiver coupled to the server, and then take action or direct the device to take action, but this approach has several drawbacks. First, the approach requires a significant amount of infrastructure, which may be expensive or impossible to install. For example, it may be desirable to track valuable cargo as it moves from one handler to the other through a baggage handling facility of an airport. It may not be possible to place transceivers on a tarmac to allow the central server to identify whether a cargo has passed by, or not passed by, a specific point. Even if it were possible, putting many transceivers all around the airport can be prohibitively expensive.
Even if these problems could be solved, other problems remain. To fit a particular application, it may be necessary to employ complex logic. If a user of such devices wishes to employ complex logic, the user must learn a programming language used to program the application. Because such applications tend to be only infrequently maintained, users don't wish to learn a separate low level or even high level programming language for relatively infrequent use.
What is needed is a system and method that can respond to events including proximity events, without requiring large amounts of infrastructure and without requiring the user to program each application in a programming language.